Corsican by birth, Moltedo was an enterprising businessman and inventor, agent to the French clergy at the Vatican, and director of the Roman post office from 1803 until 1814. Painted during one of the most productive periods of Ingres’s nascent career, this refined portrait belongs to a series of commissions he received from French officials in Napoleonic Rome. They are distinguished by the inclusion of Roman views as backdrops—in this case the Appian Way and the Colosseum—as well as by stormy gray skies, a Romantic conceit that serves as a foil to the calm and secure expressions of the men portrayed.

Louisine W. Havemeyer. Letter to Théodore Duret. October 20, 1916 [see Ref. Weitzenhoffer 1986], states that the portrait continues to gives her pleasure, as with so many bought from him.

Théodore Duret. Letter to Louisine W. Havemeyer. June 1, 1918 [see Ref. Stein 1993], notes that he was responsible for the acquisition of this portrait.

Special Dedication Exhibition of French Art. Exh. cat., Museum of French Art, French Institute. New York, 1926, p. 20, no. 21, as "Portrait of Chevalier X," a cousin of Napoleon I.

Royal Cortissoz. The Painter's Craft. New York, 1930, pp. 203–4, ill. opp. p. 202, states that this portrait had been in the collection of the sitter's family in Corsica until Mrs. Havemeyer brought it to New York.

Georges Oberti. "Ingres et Multedo." Le petit écho de la Corse no. 20 (May 1954), p. 6, ill., dates it 1812; demonstrates that the subject for the portrait cannot be Deputy Moltedo [see Wildenstein 1954], but is instead the Deputy's nephew, Joseph-Antoine Moltedo, whose age and position in Roman society agree with the likeness and dress of the sitter; notes that in his left hand Moltedo is holding a rosary, alluding to his position as general agent to the French clergy at the Holy See.

Frances Weitzenhoffer. The Havemeyers: Impressionism Comes to America. New York, 1986, pp. 238–39, 255, no. 160, ill., mentions that the Havemeyers had passed up their first opportunity to buy this picture in 1905 because they wanted a female portrait, but that after her husband's death Mrs. Havemeyer did acquire it as they had not yet found a female portrait.

Hélène Toussaint. "Les fonds de portraits d'Ingres: Peintures a fond de paysage." Bulletin du Musée Ingres nos. 63-64 (1990), pp. 22, 24 n. 9, as "Portrait de Moltedo"; proposes that Ingres painted only the portrait and that François-Marius Granet painted the landscape; suggests that the motivation to trim the painting was to reduce the prominence of the rosary in order to make the work more salable, noting that the painting lost about 15 cm in height and 12 cm in length.

Georges Vigne. Ingres. New York, 1995, pp. 87, 90, 325, 327, 331 no. 57, fig. 60 (color), dates it about 1810; publishes Ingres's Cahiers IX and X where this work is listed as "Moltedo" among the portraits he painted in Rome between 1806 and 1820.

Philip Conisbee inPortraits by Ingres: Image of an Epoch. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1999, pp. 106, 122, 125–27, 135, 142, 146, 356, 526, no. 27, ill. (color), dates it about 1810; suggests that Moltedo is not holding a rosary, but is simply wearing a ring; notes that the painting's somewhat squat appearance can be attributed to the fact that it was trimmed on all sides at an unknown date; remarks that the landscape in the background is very similar to Granet's "The Colosseum, Rome, with a Cypress" of about 1810 (Musée Granet, Aix).

Valérie Bajou. Monsieur Ingres. Paris, 1999, pp. 109–10, 112–13, 184, 359 n. 20, colorpl. 67, believes that the view of the Colosseum and the via Appia have an emblematic value; discusses the composition and the possibility that Granet painted the landscape.

Nicholas Penny. Notes on Frames in the Exhibition "Portraits by Ingres". February 1999 [published on the National Portrait Gallery, London website: http://www.npg.org.uk/research/programmes/the-art-of-the-picture-frame/artist-ingres.php].

Joseph-Antoine Moltedo (or Multedo) was born in Corsica in 1775. He served from 1803 to 1814 as director of the Roman Post Office. He was also a successful industrialist, owned a lead foundry in Tivoli, and directed a business concern. In addition, he invented a fire pump and a machine for weaving hemp.